The Hawaii Innocence Project has replied to a motion by a Seattle group seeking to unseal post-conviction DNA testing conducted on a key piece of evidence in the Dana Ireland murder, saying the leader of the group is interfering with HIP’s efforts to exonerate one of the men convicted in the case.
The memorandum in opposition filed Thursday in Hilo Circuit Court by HIP and the Innocence Project of New York — the groups representing Albert “Ian” Schweitzer — said Michael Heavey, a retired Seattle judge, and Judges for Justice “are frustrating the efforts of the attorneys and other individuals who have been working to not only exonerate Mr. Schweitzer of his wrongful conviction but to identify the true perpetrator of the crime whose DNA was left at the crime scene.”
Schweitzer has been in prison 22 years since his conviction for the Christmas Eve 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder in lower Puna of Ireland, a 23-year-old woman who had just moved to the Big Island from Virginia to be with her older sister, Sandy.
Also convicted of the crime were Frank Pauline — who was killed in a New Mexico prison in 2015 — and Schweitzer’s younger brother, Shawn, who was 16 years old when the crime occurred. As part of a plea deal, the younger Schweitzer became a state’s witness and was sentenced to five years probation and a year in jail, which already had been served, for manslaughter.
In 2019, according to the filing, HIP and IP entered a joint reinvestigation of the Ireland case with the Hawaii County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.
HIP has been at odds since at least 2018 with Judges for Justice — and more specifically, Heavey. Judges for Justice has been working independently of the Innocence Project organizations to exonerate Pauline. Heavey believes none of the convicted individuals were involved in Ireland’s abduction, rape and murder, and also thinks the sealed file contains DNA testing on a bloody Jimmy Z T-shirt three witnesses said in court belonged to Pauline.
The blood on the T-shirt is Ireland’s, but additional DNA on the shirt doesn’t match any of the three defendants.
The memo filed by HIP attorney Jennifer Brown said “the documents that Judges for Justice wants to unseal are not ‘DNA Tests’ or ‘DNA Results’ as Judges for Justice repeatedly falsely claims … .“
According to the memo, the documents are “stipulations” — notarized agreements made between HIP and the Hawaii County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney in 2007 and 2009, when attorneys of both organizations “first jointly took steps to identify the source of the DNA left on probative crime scene evidence.”
“Due to the sensitivity of these documents and the high-profile nature of the case, the parties believed these ‘stipulations’ should be filed under seal to protect their investigation,” the memo states.
A hearing on the motion to unseal is set for 9 a.m. June 21 before Hilo Circuit Judge Peter Kubota.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.